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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
1.1 History of Lubricant
Lubricant is a substance that is used to reduce friction and wear between surfaces that are in mutual contact. According to Mang and Dresel 2007, there will
be some cases in which if lubricant is present, the relative movement of two bearing surfaces is possibly to occur. This is because the surface of the bearing will be
sticking each other and with present of impurities will make the surface cannot move. So with present of lubricant, this impurities can be move and the relative
movement of two bearing surface can happen. Caines et al., 2004 has stated in their book that lubricant is already been used in the Middle East several thousands of
years B.C. This is proven with the founding of various forms of primitive bearing on that year. It is reasonable to accept that if the concept of a bearing had been
developed, then the use of a lubricant must have happened, even if only by using water as lubricant. Besides that, there are also traces of a bituminous substances
adhering on a primitive bearing that contain in Mesopotamian potter’s wheel dating from 4000 B.C. Caines et al., 2004. Therefore, it can be accepted that lubricant
already has been used by people from thousands of year ago.
The early lubricant use from vegetable oil and animal fat started since 1650 B.C. According to Caines et al., 2004, before the discovery of petroleum oil,
Egyptian chariot wheels were lubricated by animal tallow while whale fat was extensively used as a lubricant for certain equipment and machinery. These
lubricants are then replaced during late 1800s with mineral oils since it became the primary base stock for many lubricants due to price and overall performance.
Furthermore, the use of mineral based oil was also caused by the industrial
2 development during the 19
th
century. This is because the need for lubricant has increase which surpassed supply of natural oils Koushik et al., 2012. With high
exploitation of petroleum as a fuel source has increase the availability of mineral oil in large quantities and at reasonable prices. Thus it make the use of mineral oil as
lubricant more reasonable since mineral oils are found to be more stable than natural oil and also they are cheaper and available in a wide range of viscosities.
1.2 Function of Lubricant and Lubrication
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